Corpus Christi:
TCU 61, Mississippi St 52 - neither of these teams are good, please don't fall into the record trap and assume TCU is good because 7-0
St Louis 60, Bradley 57

Non-tourneys:
@Old Dominion 73, VCU 67 - and there's the mild upset I was anticipating. This is no real knock against VCU, this loss will only be a problem if it's followed with more losses. ODU enters the at-large conversation for the time being, if only on the periphery
@Harvard 75, UMass 73 - critical win to help offset the loss to Holy Cross for Harvard. I'm still not sure how high a seed they can get. As for UMass, they still have a ridiculous amount of quality road games (LSU, Provi, BYU) in the non-con, so this doesn't hurt. Yet
@Wichita St 75, Tulsa 55 - Wichita is good /analysis
@Seton Hall 58, George Washington 54
@Wyoming 78, New Mexico St 75
Belmont 83, @Ohio 81
@BYU 90, Eastern Kentucky 76

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Some of the tourneys are now over, or are waiting until Sunday to finish instead of today. Among the few going today:
Emerald Coast Classic finals: Ole Miss/Cincinnati
Great Alaska Shootout finals: Colorado St/UCSB
Barclays finals: Virginia/Rutgers

Non-tournaments:
VCU at Old Dominion - not a trivial road win if VCU gets it. Tough game
Massachusetts at Harvard - UMass has built up some early-season resume equity. This would be a big one. It's even bigger for Harvard, who needs to add some beef to their own resume
Tulsa at Wichita St - house money chance for Tulsa
George Washington at Seton Hall - yet another game where both teams are around the periphery of the bubble. Big for both
New Mexico St at Wyoming - Wyoming is hovering in the vicinity of the bubble, they need to get every game like this in the win ledger

Battle 4 Atlantis:
Wisconsin 69, Oklahoma 56 - Wisky got their 3 wins, and OU has their UCLA win in their hip pocket. Win for everybody
Butler 64, Georgetown 58 - Quality tournament for Butler. Butler/G'town play twice more this season, remember. The Big East. Who's in it? Anyways, Butler also has their UNC win in their hip pocket. G'town lost to Wisky (no sin) and Butler (minor sin), and we'll have to see how their Florida win holds up.
North Carolina 75, Florida 64 - UF is in real trouble, all of a sudden. Got nothing of value on this trip
UCLA 88, UAB 76 - UCLA is also the other team with nothing of value on this trip

Friday, November 28, 2014

Battle 4 Atlantis: Oklahoma gets a signature win chance against Wisconsin. Butler/Georgetown in a bit of an oddity. North Carolina/Florida in the losers' bracket, both can salvage their trips with a win. The big loser is UCLA, with losses to OU and UNC, and a useless game against UAB next

Orlando Classic: Tennessee/Kansas and Michigan St/Marquette semis

Wooden Legacy:
UTEP/Xavier is a nice little matchup. Semis here

NIT:
Minnesota/Georgia for 3rd, St John's/Gonzaga for the title. Big chance for the Johnnies, and Georgia needs to salvage something here

Battle 4 Atlantis:
Oklahoma 59, Butler 46
Wisconsin 68, Georgetown 65 - Wisky/Oklahoma for the title (UW not quite getting the signature win chance they were hoping for). Butler/G'town get to play 3 times this season now
North Carolina 78, UCLA 56
Florida 56, UAB 47

Battle 4 Atlantis, your impact tournament of the day:
Butler 74, North Carolina 66 - UNC has plenty of chances to rebound. The news here is Butler might be a lot better than we thought, and adds another layer of depth to the Big East
Oklahoma 75, UCLA 65 - Another mild upset in the tournament. UCLA/UNC...we're getting the matchup anyways
Wisconsin 72, UAB 43
Georgetown 66, Florida 65 (OT) - holy hell, what is wrong with Florida? At least they'll get one of UNC/UCLA in their 3rd game

NIT:
St John's 70, Minnesota 61 - I think this technically goes as a road game for Minny...which does help the profile a little bit
Gonzaga 88, Georgia 76 - St John's/Gonzaga coming up. A road win for Gonzaga here could be the difference between the 2 line and the 4 line in March

Impact result of the day:
Arkansas 78, @SMU 72 - Well, looks like Arkansas is that 3rd SEC team, for right now. Signature win. SMU's 3rd loss already. They scheduled up, wisely...and are paying the price. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They'll need some wins in conference play to beef up the resume.

Quick-hitters:
@Harvard 84, Houston 63
@Cincinnati 59, North Carolina Central 50
Detroit 82, @Toledo 79 - interesting to me in that I had Toledo among the MAC favorites and semi-relevant. Gonna have to get off of that now.
@Penn St 78, Akron 72 - boy, not a good day for the MAC. I'm officially off that bandwagon.
@Nebraska 80, Omaha 67
Miami 77, @Charlotte 74 - Miami to 6-0, and they're winning all their toss-up games. I believe now
Boise St 86, @Idaho 75

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

So many tournaments going on. There's way too many to list, so just reference my tournament post below for matchups. I'm just going to highlight the best tournaments to pay attention to:

Maui's semifinals: Pitt/SDSU and Kansas St/Arizona
Progressive Legends Classic: VCU has a must-win against Oregon, and Villanova/Michigan could be for premier seeding in March
CBE HoF Classic: Iowa St/Maryland for the title

Non-tourney games:
Arkansas at SMU - Arkansas could use a signature road win given how awful the SEC is. SMU could use any signature win after their slow start. High stakes game
Omaha at Nebraska - Remember, Omaha just beat Marquette on the road
Miami at Charlotte - But didn't Miami just beat Charlotte 2 days ago? Yep. They won the Charleston Classic, which was a 3 game tournament for everyone. But you're allowed 4 games in an exempt tourney. So some of the teams in it scheduled a 4th game against a team in the field. This is one of them. Akron/Penn St is another.

Miscellany:
@Baylor 67, Stephen F Austin 51 - sorry SFA, you'll get cookie points for stepping out and starting to play these games, but you have to win one at one point
@San Diego 77, Western Michigan 70

Monday, November 24, 2014

Bring me all of your mid-majors! Green Bay is the best team in this field, and the pressure will be on to hold serve for them. Any mis-step could be fatal. FGCU won't be an at-large team, but they're 2nd best in this field, probably. Everyone else is playing for a chance to make a name for itself.

Boy, rough to be Arizona. You sign up for Maui and get stuck with a marginal Missouri team. They better hope it's K-State next, because Purdue isn't any better. And where are the high-end teams? SDSU is worth a signature win, but frankly Arizona needs to sweep through to avoid losing ground in the race for a 1 seed.

BYU/SDSU has high stakes. Winner gets a decent Pitt team and a possible chance at Zona. Loser gets the garbage game with Chaminade and the likely Purdue/Missou winner. Meaning the loser would not get a quality win in this tournament. SDSU probably has enough room to rebound from it. BYU might not.

It's the big one. First off, Wisky and UNC need to avoid the quarterfinal upset. Provided that, expect heavyweight games in the semifinals and finals everywhere.

UCLA/Oklahoma and Florida/G'town are high stakes games. Losers likely get stuck with an easy game (read: not helpful to the resume), while the winners get two high-profile games. Florida in particular has looked vulnerable this season. This tournament offers signature wins that can be very valuable in March. Pay close attention to who wins.

@Rhode Island 66, Nebraska 62 (OT) - Not a lot of harm to Nebraska's resume, but a top 25 team should win this game more often than not. Big, big get for URI, A-10 won't be as strong this year so a quality non-con scalp goes a long way towards an at-large bid

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Boise St at Wisconsin - House money chance for Boise to get a signature win
Colorado at Wyoming - Big chance for both teams for an early win. Both are in the vicinity of the bubble
Nebraska at Rhode Island - Some have URI labeled as a tournament team. Big chance right away to get the win to prove it. And for Nebraska, this would be a quality road win
North Carolina vs. Davidson at a neutral site
American at Louisiana Tech - Patriot favorites at CUSA favorites? Sign me up

In tournament action:

The Hall of Fame Tip-Off is underway. Day 1: Notre Dame/UMass, FSU/Providence
Coaches vs Cancer: finals of Stanford/Duke tonight
A couple tournaments take a day off

2K Classic:
Texas 71, California 55 - This could be a big year for the Big 12. This is a start
Syracuse 66, Iowa 63 - Iowa walks away with the dreaded goose egg. Plenty of chances to rebound though, no worries

Charleston (semis):
Miami 79, Akron 51 - Not a trivial result for Miami, it's a decent win and this team might be a lot better than we thought
Charlotte 65, South Carolina 63 - There's the SEC we know and love. Miami/Charlotte in the finals
USC 72, Drexel 70
Penn St 72, Cornell 71

Quick-hitters:
@Kentucky 89, Boston 65
@Oregon 78, Toledo 68 - Pretty good chance for Toledo to barge into the at-large fray, but it goes begging
@Florida 61, Louisiana-Monroe 56 (OT) - Holy crap what are you doing Florida?
@Xavier 81, Stephen F Austin 63 - Ok, now we know why SFA schedules so soft every year - they aren't actually that good
Iona 85, @Wake Forest 81 - Ouch for Wake, but hey...MAAC favorites, on the road at an ACC bottomfeeder? Seems like a reasonable result
@Colorado St 80, Georgia St 70 - GSU was everyone's favorite mid-major darling coming into the year. Should they have won this game? It might've been too much of an ask, sure, but they're behind the at-large 8 ball a little bit. They have roadies remaining with ODU and Green Bay in the non-con...they need to get one, and maybe both, because the rest of their SoS will be awful
@Long Beach St 69, Kansas St 60 - And here was what I was talking about yesterday. This won't hurt KSU as much as you think
@Hawaii 74, Pittsburgh 70 - And this will hurt Pitt, but again, true road game on the way to Maui. Committee won't punish them too much for this. Don't overreact on these last 2 results

Friday, November 21, 2014

Impact game of the day:
George Washington at Virginia - I have GWU around the bubble conversation....obviously a win over Virginia has immediate resume impact

At New York, the 2K Classic:
Syracuse vs. Iowa - Syracuse dropped an iffy one to Cal, don't want to have to make up at-large ground in ACC play
Texas vs. California

At Brooklyn, the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic begins:
UNLV vs. Stanford - Winner gets a good neutral win for the resume and a free shot at Duke. Loser gets a garbage game with Temple. High stakes
Temple vs. Duke

At the Charleston Classic:
USC/Drexel and Penn St/Cornell in the consy bracket
Charlotte/South Carolina and Akron/Miami in the winners bracket

At Puerto Rico:
Texas A&M/Charleston and New Mexico/George Mason in the consy bracket. UNM really needs to sweep these next 2 games
Dayton/UConn and Boston College/West Virginia in the winners bracket. I'm highlighting the Dayton/UConn game as big for Dayton, and if BC is actually good...this is a house money chance for them

The Paradise Jam gets underway. LSU/Old Dominion is my game of the day there. Clemson/Gardner-Webb, Seton Hall/Nevada, Illinois St/Weber St

Non-tournament games of note:
Toledo at Oregon - well technically it's a tournament game, but one of those buy games before the actual neutral site games. Anyways, if Toledo is actually good, which I think they are, this is a spot to steal a road win, IMO.
Stephen F Austin at Xavier - Hey, SFA has stepped up its schedule! I don't think they'll be hurt one bit if they lose this game
Iona at Wake Forest - This is an eminently losable game for WF
Kansas St at Long Beach St - Don't laugh, this would be a good road win for the resume for KSU, and a loss doesn't even hurt that badly
Pittsburgh at Hawaii - Pitt is on the way to Maui, one shot at a mini-boost for the resume with a road win

Impact result of the day:
@Indiana 74, SMU 68 - For Indiana, a good win to start. They're a bubble team this year, so every scalp matters. The real news is SMU. 2 road games at Gonzaga, and Indiana. There's no sin in losing either game individually, but both? For a team that lost out on the NCAAs last year because of a weak SoS, whiffing your signature win chances in the non-con isn't a good way to start. Chances will be limited for them in conference play. They host Arkansas and UCSB...and go to Michigan...and that's about it for the non-con chances.

Puerto Rico:
Dayton 55, Texas A&M 53
UConn 65, Charleston 57
Boston College 69, New Mexico 65 - Perhaps the only mild upset in this tournament. New Mexico is now trapped in the bad half of the draw, and remember, the Mountain West is down. UNM kinda needed these quality win chances and won't get them now
West Virginia 91, George Mason 65

A field of moderate strength, with the clear top 4 teams not playing each other in the quarterfinals. The battle is for the top 4 (Dayton, UConn, UNM, WVU) to avoid a bad loss, and then to pick up 2 chances at quality wins. It's a spot where avoiding the bad loss might actually matter more to the likes of UNM and Dayton.

Eclectic field here. I'm not sure a single one of these teams can call themselves an at-large team at this point. So some of the wins available in this tourney aren't as valuable as you think. On the other hand, 3 neutral-site wins is a good thing to have in your back pocket in March. Chances for Miami (coming off a win over Florida) to establish itself as a NCAA team by winning all 3. I can't imagine either USC or Penn St being legit contenders for the NCAAs....Akron and Charlotte could, and winning this tournament is a good first step. One thing is clear: multiple losses in this tourney will be crippling.

Cal is probably a tier down from the top 3 here. Despite the great field, this is kind of a non-event in my eyes. Yes, winning these games would be great, for everyone, but each of these 4 teams will get many more similar chances at quality wins later.

LSU is the best team in this field and needs to act like it, because this thing is full of at-large mines. It's more important to avoid a bad loss in this thing than anything else. Underwhelming field. Clemson and Seton Hall are a bit off the at-large pace; a couple of wins here would help immensely. Also, ODU is a rising team, and an upset of LSU would at least get them on my radar this early in the season.

Temple is poop this year, so Duke should handle. Stanford/UNLV feels like a classic bubble game. Lose it, and you get a worthless game with Temple. Win it, and you get a house money shot at Duke. That is a high-stakes game right there.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Light night on impact games as most of the big names played in the last couple of days. What I'm watching:

Oklahoma at Creighton - OU has to win this one if they're a legitimate top 25 team
Ohio at FGCU - mid-major battle that may be of interest to only me
UC Irvine at Arizona - here's one of the Big West favorites in an impossible spot on the road. house money chance
Green Bay at Wisconsin - and here's the Horizon favorites in an impossible spot on the road too
Wake Forest at Arkansas - I'm underselling Arkansas (and the entire SEC, really). Needless to say, this game is mandatory for them

So in the preseason, I put Kansas at the #1 overall seed, and Kentucky on the 2 line (5th overall). I laid out my simple reasons - we've seen Kentucky underachieve while breaking in freshmen to the college game, and the SEC is so weak that UK might simply not get enough quality win chances compared to the other heavyweights. Therefore, UK's profile will have less meat than profiles from other conferences; hence the 2 seed as I put 4 other projected conference champs ahead of them.

Then this happened. So now I'm the idiot on the Bracket Matrix who was the only one not to put UK on the 1 line. Ha. Knowing Calipari, though, I bet he likes that their average on it is 1.03 instead of 1.00. Motivation and such. Well, too bad, that'll be adjusted this weekend when the first in-season bracket comes out.

Other immediate impact results:
Northern Iowa 79, @Stephen F Austin 77 (OT) - Right away, a quality road win that will look great on UNI's at-large resume. SFA doesn't play big-time opponents often...so they needed this badly for their at-large chances. And they missed. Even with a gaudy record, they may need to win their conference tourney
Duke 81, Michigan St 71 - Here's another case of possible stupidity. I trust in Izzo, and I put them on the 2 line in the preseason, in large part because of the strength of the B1G. After watching them, that probably needs to be a 4-5 seed for them, not a 2. Duke is a solid 1.
@VCU 87, Toledo 78 - This win is more quality than you think for VCU. No harm for Toledo, but they don't have that many quality win chances remaining
@San Diego St 53, Utah 49 - Both are tournament teams, and this is a "status quo" result
Wichita St 71, Memphis 56 - Memphis (and all the other AAC teams) need to take the non-con more seriously, and more particularly the quality opponents. Because opportunities are limited in conference play

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

See my post about the tip-off marathon for descriptions of most of the games. I won't repeat myself here. Just want to point out some other games today:

Long Beach St at Xavier - could be a spot of bother
Stony Brook at Georgia - don't assume anything for the SEC nowadays. SBU is good
St Louis at Indiana St - both teams are worse than last year; this should be a good litmus test for both
Murray St at Middle Tennessee - curious to see whether the OVC favorites handle a tricky road spot

Impact result of the night:
Miami 69, @Florida 67 - Is Miami better than we thought? This would be a big step for the bottom half of the ACC. The conference has struggled with depth recently, and this helps. As for Florida...the SEC is a tire fire. You can't afford to drop these games in the same way, say, Michigan St or Virginia can. Costly.

Notable results:
@Gonzaga 72, SMU 56 - Solid home win for Gonzaga, SMU doesn't get hurt too badly by this result
@St Mary's 83, New Mexico St 71 - NMSU better win the WAC. As for St Mary's, a good win which will look better if they string more such similar wins together
@Temple 82, Louisiana Tech 75 - Yes, LaTech was on the road, but they're CUSA favorites and Temple is down. This hurts a bit
Winthrop 77, @Clemson 74 - Yeah, what I said about the ACC above? This result wipes that progress out
@Iowa St 81, Georgia St 58 - GSU didn't need to win, but the final margin stings a bit

Monday, November 17, 2014

In ESPN's efforts to take over the world, we have another marathon of games tonight and tomorrow. Here's the guide on the games that will matter, and the games that won't.

Monday:
Miami at Florida (7PM) - Likely a Florida blowout win, house money chance for Miami
SMU at Gonzaga (11PM) - Highlighted in my daily posts, this is a big game for both teams - more for seeding than anything else, but still worth a lot
Detroit at Oregon (11PM) - meh

Tuesday:
Auburn at Colorado (1AM) - Bruce Pearl's gonna need a year to build this thing up. Skip
New Mexico St at St Mary's (3AM) - This will be a good game, and mandatory for St Mary's
High Point at Hawaii (5AM) - yawn
Iona at Wofford (7AM) - Actually...kinda of a decent game. Wofford is the SoCon favorite and Iona is probably the MAAC co-faves with Siena. Pecking order game here
Northern Iowa @ Stephen F Austin (9AM) - MASSIVE GAME for both. SFA has SoS problems every year, so hanging a signature win on the board in the non-con will be worth plenty. UNI is a bubble team itself, and a road win is a road win
Manhattan @ UMass (11AM) - UMass should win, could be a good spot for a mid-day nap after Iona/Woffrd and UNI/SFA
Baylor @ South Carolina (noon) - Should be safe to nap here too, expect Baylor to blow USC out
Wichita St vs. Memphis (2PM) - Pecking order game
Utah @ San Diego St (4PM) - Another pecking order game. Remember, the definition of a pecking order game - a game between two likely tournament teams, where the result doesn't matter for the bubble but does matter for the seedings
Toledo @ VCU (6PM) - Toledo is a contender in the MAC, not likely to contend for an at-large berth...unless they win this
Michigan St vs. Duke (7PM) - I suppose maybe this is a good game
Marquette @ Ohio St (730PM) - pass
Kansas vs. Kentucky (930PM) - Let's see if I'm right about these two teams
Texas Tech @ LSU (930PM) - LSU has to win this game if they're serious about being a NCAA team

My suggestion:
Monday night, stay up late for SMU/Gonzaga. If you can do NMSU and St Mary's, do it, but the weak may consider a few straight hours of sleep if needed. Wake up early for the end of Iona/Wofford and UNI/SFA. That's a good stretch of basketball to watch. Use the mid-morning to regroup if you need it, because once you hit 2PM, you need to watch to the end of the day.

Game of the day:
Georgia St at Iowa St - GSU is everyone's mid-major darling. Here's a chance at a signature road win to lean on for the season

Other game of the day:
SMU at Gonzaga - SMU missed the tournament with a bad SoS last year, so this is an immediate chance to rectify that mistake. Gonzaga, playing in the WCC, need to pile up as many quality wins in the non-con as possible. Early urgency for both sides here

Miami at Florida - Not a trivial game for Florida
Louisiana Tech at Temple - LaTech is the better team, but this is a true road game. NCAA at-large teams win this game
North Dakota St at Iowa - NDSU isn't as good this year as previous years, FYI
Washington St at TCU - Pac-12 at Big 12....yeah I can't pretend this isn't a garbage game
Ole Miss at Troy - Only notable because Ole Miss has already lost one clunker and are on the road here in an effort to destroy the SEC
Auburn at Colorado - oh hey, cute, another power 5 matchup. gag
New Mexico St at St Mary's - St Mary's fancies itself as a fringe bubble team, and therefore, this is kind of a must-win

Impact results:
Holy Cross 58, Harvard 57 (neutral site) - Absolutely horrible loss for a team with big aspirations. Good news for Harvard is that there's no conference tourney to knock them out of the NCAA tournament, but this will damage the seed.
George Washington 70, @Rutgers 53 - GWU is the better team, but this IS a road win.

Um....I got nothin' else for you here. UMass 71, Boston College 62 at a neutral site. And then a slew of top teams held serve over cupcakes. Wisky, Kentucky, Arizona, UNC, Virginia, Texas, et al.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Very boring day, as most are avoiding big games this early in the season on a Saturday.

Manhattan v. Florida St - yeah, you can tell already, I have to dig deep today
Albany @ Providence - yawn
Fairfield @ Duke
Tulsa v. Oral Roberts - a neutral site game Tulsa must win if they're serious this year
Boise St @ Loyola Marymount - note, yesterday I said Boise had a road game at San Diego...it was neutral site. This however is a roadie. I think

Impact results:
@Georgia Tech 80, Georgia 73 - Early ding for the SEC, early boon for the ACC
Charleston Southern 66, @Ole Miss 65 (OT) - And speaking of early dings for the SEC, here's a big one. CSU should be good in the Big South, but still. Yikes
UMKC 69, @Missouri 61 - S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!
Louisville 81, Minnesota 68 - No real harm to Minnesota for losing this. In their ideal world, this won't mean anything for Louisville either
@VCU 85, Tennessee 69 - The better team takes care of business at home

Friday, November 14, 2014

Welcome to the daily postings! Each day, you're getting two of them thrown in your face: the recap of the day before, and the preview of the day to come.

Welcome to opening night.

There are many trivial games; I don't need to mention Presbyterian @ Duke, for example. Cupcake games get ignored on this blog unless something funny happens in the game.

Game of the day:
Minnesota v. Louisville (neutral site) - Sort of a house money shot for Minnesota right off the bat to get a signature win. The impact of a win or loss in this game, for either side, will be rather small. Both have a billion chances later in the season for similar wins.

Sneaky bracket-impact game of the day:
Georgia @ Georgia Tech - Get used to me ragging on the SEC this season - they're awful. Georgia is in the mix for 3rd place behind Kentucky/Florida. So a road game at a bottom half ACC team is a spot where they can shut me up.

The "why are you playing this game" game of the day:
Louisiana Tech @ Southern - You're the CUSA favorites...and going on the road to a SWAC school? What? Am I missing something?

The rundown:
Tennessee @ VCU - Not expecting the upset here, but noting that it's another chance for the SEC to rocket off to a good start
Virginia @ James Madison - Virginia should handle this spot on the road, but it IS the road...
American @ Temple - Patriot favorites in a road game that, if they're really good, they'll handle
North Carolina Central @ North Carolina - MEAC favorites will likely get blasted on the road
New Mexico St @ Wichita St - NMSU's mission to compensate for the awful SoS in the WAC gets underway
Weber St @ Utah St - Big Sky favorites in a roadie at a MWC school. These are the types of games you need to win to improve your seed in March, and the Big Sky has struggled with their seed recently
Washington St @ UTEP - UTEP should handle, but a Pac-12 opponent isn't trivial for them

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

I would like to take the time to explain my preseason projections, and how I ranked the teams.

1) I ended up deciding to project the conference champions of the top 4 conferences on my 1 line. It's kind of the easy way out, but I think it holds up. No one is questioning these are the solid favorites in their respective conference.

2) Kentucky on the 2 line? Ok, a few points here:
- Freshmen take time to develop. They'll suffer early losses. And that's ok.
- Teams from mid-major conferences don't get 1 seeds unless they run the table. Therefore, Kentucky won't get a 1 seed without a big run.
- Yes, the SEC is a mid major conference. Go ahead, take away Kentucky and Florida. Compare the rest of the conference to the A-10, Mountain West, WCC, and MVC. The SEC might still be better, but it's darn close.

3) I'll do a conference hierarchy in another post, but the ACC and B1G are the big 2...and I think the Big 12 will be sneaky good this year. Good depth in the league. This should boost Kansas, among others.

4) I think an up year for CUSA is brewing. The bottom half of the conference is bad, but between LaTech and UTEP and a couple others, I expect multiple teams challenging the Top 25 this year. They have a reasonable shot at an at-large bid - if they avoid catastrophic losses in conference play.

5) Down a bit is the A-10 and MWC. That's reflected with 3 and 2 projected bids, respectively.

6) As always, I project a MAC at-large team for giggles. I think the conference has a fair shot of being relevant in March.

7) The Big East and AAC are major conferences. Not mid-major. AAC is getting close, but I can't demote teams like UConn and Cincy like that. The reason I mention this point? Too many people out there in the medias not giving enough respect to these conferences.

8) The Ivy League is ascending, and it's going to help Harvard this year. Very reasonable shot at a single-digit seed for Harvard. As for all the other small-majors...don't see another team cracking the 12-seed ceiling. For the record, I'm counting small-majors as the bottom 20 conferences, excluding CUSA, WCC, MVC, A-10, MWC, and the 7 majors.

9) B1G with 8 of 14 teams in, ACC with 7 of 15 teams in. This is reflective of the middle of the ACC. Both conference's bottom teams are bad, but the B1G has the advantage in the middle.

Monday, November 10, 2014

1) Several procedures, almost all centered around the play-in games:
a) Northern Iowa from 10 to 11, BYU from 11 to 10 - this accomodates BYU's no-Sunday rule
b) Xavier from 11 to 12, Illinois from 13 to 11, St John's from 12 to 11, Notre Dame from 12 to 13. All of these happen because of Dayton. One of the play-in winners will go Tuesday in Dayton to Thursday in Jacksonville. However, if you play Wednesday, your Friday sites are Charlotte/Columbus/Omaha/Seattle. Charlotte hosts a 1 and 2 seed, Columbus hosts a 1 and 2 seed, Omaha hosts a 1 and 2 seed. This means no seed slot between 11 and 14 are available for a play-in game winner. Therefore, Illinois gets a massive, massive 2 line move and St John's a 1 line move, but the equalizer is they have to travel to Seattle. Illinois gets 2 instead of 1 because Notre Dame's conference affiliation gets in the way of other pairings. Xavier bumps down to accomodate this madness.
c) One executive move - Murray St from 13 to 14, UC Irvine from 14 to 13 to accomodate obviously easier travel.

2) Wisconsin as a 1 seed, I have possibly playing Cincinnati in Columbus in round 2. Part of this is to highlight the arcane rules the NCAA has about geography. The other part is having 2 B1G teams on the 8 line and being stuck with that situation.

3) As a whole, I tried to replicate the NCAA's geographic rules. If you're the top team within a seed line, I find the optimal spot for you, and work on from there. In the current bracket, this harms SMU, who gets Gonzaga in the round of 32 in Seattle.

4) The ACC was tricky. They have 4 of my top 12 teams, and by rule, must be in 4 different brackets. Therefore, Louisville draws the west regional, and the ripple effect also hurt a couple other geographic alignments. Texas doesn't get the South regional because of Kansas as well. I wasn't able to put a couple other teams in optimal regional location because of the ACC.